I meandered my way a block in one direction and two more in another. Then I positioned myself at the mouth of a wide alley and began pounding my club on the pavement. This is a well-known signal policemen use to alert their brethren that they’re in need of assistance. At least it’s well-known to the readers of dime novels. Whether policemen themselves are aware of it, I’m not altogether sure. I did a nice steady beat, but added a little flourish every fourth measure. It wasn’t long before the street’s inhabitants began to make their feelings known. About the time the first thrown object whizzed past my head—an apple, I believe, but perhaps some other fruit—my man rounded the corner. I immediately made my escape to the other end of the alley.
Unfortunately, I was now thoroughly disoriented. The combination of the unfamiliar geography and the German ambassador’s generosity with his cellar had rendered my normally sound compass inoperable. There were some people about, and I considered asking one of them for directions, but I just couldn’t work out the proper phrasing. There seemed no getting around the fact that a policeman who becomes lost while walking his beat is likely to arouse suspicion. It was then that things took a rather unexpected turn. Not that the events of the previous thirty minutes had been in any way anticipated. But they became a good deal stranger. I was standing on a corner, surveying the street signs, when a hysterical young woman ran up to me.
“He’s killing her!”
“Is he?”
She seemed unsatisfied with my response and became even more hysterical.
“For God’s sake! Hurry!”
She seemed bent on attracting attention, so I agreed to go with her just to quiet her down. She led me to a small tenement and then up to the second floor. We waded through a crowd of women and children, eventually coming on a couple who seemed to be involved in a dispute. The fellow, a big man, had apparently run out of ready cash during his Saturday evening revelry at the local saloon and come home to squeeze the house money from his wife. The wife, whose face already bore a bruise, objected to his plan and was wielding an iron pan in order to make her position clear.
I tapped the fellow on the shoulder and suggested he sit down. Typical of his breed, he had little respect for the law. He shoved me onto the floor.
“Club him!” the crowd yelled.
I thought I’d give the fellow another chance, but this time he dispatched me to the floor before I’d uttered a word.
“Club him!” the crowd yelled.
And I’d come to agree with them. I wasn’t normally fond of the decision-making skills of a mob, but when the mob is right, it’s right. I clubbed him. At first, not nearly hard enough. He turned and I could tell immediately that my efforts hadn’t improved his mood. The second time I spared nothing. He went down, and the crowd cheered.
“You’d better call the wagon,” someone advised.
“The wagon?”
“To take him away.”
I wasn’t looking forward to meeting up with my comrades on the force and thought another course might be preferable.
“Why don’t we just tie him up?” I suggested. “If I call for the wagon, he’ll just get a night in jail and come back all the meaner tomorrow. But if we tie him up in the basement, you can read him temperance tracts until he takes the pledge.”
The mob’s response was a cool one.
“What good’s reading to him going to do?” a woman asked.
“What if we don’t feed him?” another suggested.
“And give him one to the head, every now and then….”
The crowd laughed with approval. I could see sentiment was moving in my direction.
“You can torment him in whatever way you think proper,” I acceded.
Eventually, the doubters came around and we began dragging him downstairs. Throughout the process, however, women were continually piping up with novel methods of torturing the fellow. I was beginning to wonder if my original concerns about the soundness of the mob’s judgment were not well founded. It was then, as we were passing a first-floor doorway, that I caught a glimpse of a fellow wearing prison stripes.
“He saw Jimmy!” an old woman cried. “Please don’t turn him in.”
“All right,” I said, and returned to the dragging.
“He’ll have to turn him in,” some fool bent on complicating matters said.
“No, I won’t,” I corrected.
“He’s just saying that.”
“Look, as far as I know, the fellow just came from a costume party.”
“He didn’t do it!” the old woman pleaded.
“Well then, what would be the point of turning him in?” I asked rhetorically. But the crowd had lost the cooperative spirit.
“What if we pay you?”
“Pay me?”
“Pay you not to turn Jimmy in.”
“It’s on the house—your thanks is graft enough.”
They were unconvinced, and so began taking up a collection. Evidently Jimmy ranked high in their esteem. It was at that moment that inspiration struck.
“Look. I’ve an idea. Jimmy, I take it, is a good boy who’s just been dealt a bad hand. Given another chance, he’ll redeem himself. Am I right?”
They seemed to agree, though a few skeptics were snickering in the distance.
“And this fellow,” I said, pointing to my victim, “is a thoroughly unpleasant miscreant. Correct?”
“Completely worthless,” his wife confirmed. “He lost his job today.”
“Well, the solution seems simple enough. These two fellows look something alike. What if they just trade places? We put Jimmy’s state-supplied garments on… what’s this fellow’s name?”
“O’Conner.”
“We put the prison garb on O’Conner. And have Jimmy hide upstairs in O’Conner’s apartment. Then you can send round to the precinct house and tell them you’ve caught an escaped prisoner.”
Generally speaking, they took to the idea. They began the switching of dress.
“Are you a real cop?” a boy asked.
“I clubbed him, didn’t I?”
“Where’s your gun? And your helmet?”
“I misplaced them.”
“Want one?”
“One what?”
“A helmet. What size?” He surveyed my head and left us.
“Mister,” a little girl was tugging at my sleeve. “You lost this.”
She handed me a small bit of fur. I looked at it, puzzled.
“It’s your mustache,” her mother announced. She went and got some paste and proceeded to reattach it.
Then the boy showed up with the helmet. It fit perfectly.
“One dollar.”
I paid him.
“Five dollars for a gun.”
“No, no. I’m sure mine will turn up.”
The women had completed the costuming of O’Conner, but they seemed unsure whether he was convincing in his new role. They were right: Jimmy was ten years younger and a good deal better-looking than O’Conner. Which was undoubtedly the reason Mrs. O’Conner, also younger and handsomer, had warmed to the scheme so readily.
“The men from the precinct know Jimmy.”
“It will just take some finesse,” I said. “Give O’Conner here a shave and a couple black eyes. Then when they come around for him, Jimmy’s mom can put on the keening act, in spades. Plead with them, cry on their boots. They’ll just want to get out of here and get rid of him. And the fellows at the penitentiary won’t care, just so the head count comes out right at morning roll call. Then on Monday, Jimmy can apply for O’Conner’s job.”
I suggested they send the house gun dealer off to the precinct to inform on “Jimmy’s” whereabouts. They seemed genuinely appreciative of my Solomon-esque wisdom. But with my work done, I bade them adieu.
“How do we explain the dent on his head?”
“Just tell them Jimmy was chased here by an officer, but he eluded him after the bash to the head.”
“What officer?”
“McDonald? That’s no proper name for a cop.”
“Ah, what would you suggest?”
“Callaghan.”
“Sounds a bit hackneyed, doesn’t it?” But Callaghan it was.
While they were taking turns blackening O’Conner’s orbs, I asked for directions then slid out and sauntered over to the Merrills’. The delay had brought one advantage, the streets were now a good deal more deserted. I made my way to the house and found the hall light still on. Meaning, I hoped, that the senator and his missus hadn’t returned. I debated some about methodology. On the one hand, the bedroom in question was in the front of the house and the fewer rooms I had to enter the better. On the other hand, entry at the rear of the house would offer a certain amount of cover. What decided the issue was the fact that I couldn’t imagine how to get up to the second floor of either side without breaking my neck. Another manner of entry was called for. Then I hit upon it. Isn’t one of a policeman’s duties to test that doors are locked at night? I started a few houses up from the Merrills’ and was startled to learn that the first two doors I checked were unlocked. What was a policeman’s duty in that event? If I were to lock them, someone coming home late might be forced to sleep on the street. I’d never appreciated how full a cop’s life was with dilemmas.
Sadly, the Merrills were not among the naïve. The door was locked. And the key was not under the mat. It was, however, under a prominently placed rock in the flower bed. I let myself in and removed my boots, the better to creep. Then I crept upstairs. No one was stirring and I was able to reach the chamber with no more than three or four stray creaks of the floorboards. I closed the door behind me and turned on a light. My first order of business was to determine where Mrs. Merrill stowed her lingerie. From my limited experience, women always hide things among their lingerie in the belief men feel inhibited from going through these unmentionables. But they are under a misapprehension. And none more so than Mrs. Merrill. She had some very arresting attire. I wondered if the senator, who slept in a separate room, was ever made privy to any of it. In the midst of her unmentionables, I found a stack of letters. Love letters, it seemed. They had nothing to do with the case, but they did make interesting reading. Not wanting to take the time for a careful study, I stuffed them in my pocket. Then I came upon a little velvet bag. I’d found the jewelry—three items of early Tiffany.
I wasted no time celebrating but turned off the light and crept back downstairs. Just in time to see the Merrills coming up the front steps. I crept toward the back of the house, unlocked the rear door, and made a flawless escape. Or nearly flawless. The only fly in the ointment became immediately apparent when my stocking feet hit the cool flagstones outside. My boots were in the front hall and the Merrills were probably tripping over them at that very moment—no doubt imagining a member of the force in bed with the maid upstairs.
As I mentioned previously, it was a warmish night so I wasn’t sorely discomfited by the lack of footwear. Until it started raining. The euphoria I’d felt earlier, both in the finding of the jewelry and in the solving of the O’Conner-Jimmy affair, was waning. And when I realized a roundsman was calling out to me, it vanished completely.
“Where are your boots, man?”
“Stolen, sir.”
“Stolen? While you were wearing them?”
“They came off when I was chasing that escaped prisoner.”
“You? What’s your name?”
“Callaghan.”
“So it was you. We just put him in the wagon. What’s your precinct?”
“Next over but one.”
“Next over but one? What the hell does that mean?”
“Third?”
“Are you asking or telling?”
“Telling, tentatively.”
“You chased him all the way from the West End?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Christ! You lost your gun as well? They’ll hang you for that.”
Then he started shaking his head in a worrying manner. But as luck would have it, inspiration was springing forth that evening with a helpful abandon.
“You see, sir, I’d just arrived home after my shift, and I was taking off my things and I see this fellow in stripes run down the back of the house. I didn’t have time to grab my gun, just the club. And the boots came off because I didn’t stop to tie them back up. I caught up to the fellow somewhere around the theatre district, and landed a good one on his head, which you perhaps noted if you saw the fellow.”
“I saw that. But how’d he manage to get up again?”
“That sound prison diet. He took off like a flash.”
“A flash?”
“Rabbit?”
“And what happened to his face? You might hear some about that. What a mess.”
“Can’t say. I chased him all the way up here and lost him again. I thought he went into a tenement, but they said they hadn’t seen him.”
“And you believed them?”
“They had honest faces.”
“Honest faces?” He started the worrying head shaking again, but then his mood became more charitable. “Well, I guess you did a job tonight. You go on home. And better soak those feet.”
Then he found me cab and commandeered it. The cabman wasn’t keen on the idea until I assured him I’d be only too glad to pay. When we arrived at the hotel, I had the fellow drop me off at a side entrance, but still had to slosh across the empty and otherwise silent lobby in wet socks. The night clerk looked concerned.
“Costume ball,” I explained.
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change.
19
As I opened the door of our room, the light from the hall illuminated Emmie’s costume on a chair. I undressed in the dark and got into bed. Something immediately struck me as odd. Emmie’s heart was beating so strongly and her breathing was so rapid I could hear both distinctly. It was obvious she’d had an invigorating workout shortly before I arrived. And yet I’d been told she returned to the room hours before.
Normally, when a man comes home and finds his wife breathless in bed, his first instinct is to check the closet for visitors. However, I knew Emmie had been escorted home by a fellow Smith College alumna. So there was nothing to worry about on that score. Then a stray remark of the countess’s came to mind. When she was admonishing me for my reluctance to burgle the Merrills’. “Everyone else is cooperating,” she’d said. The scales fell from my eyes.
“Emmie, I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”
She sat up and turned on a light.
“Where were you, Harry?”
“Mrs. Merrill’s bedchamber—sans Mrs. Merrill.”
I got up and poured out my loot on the bed beside her.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“The Sachses’.” She got up and fetched her own swag. She had two, seemingly identical, Boucheron brooches, along with several other items the general had claimed.
“So the countess had planned this all along?” I asked.
“Yes, that became obvious early in the evening. Do you remember how she brought up Oz when we were speaking with Mrs. Easterly?”
“I remember making every effort to flee the scene.”
“Well, as soon as she mentioned it, Mrs. Easterly told her how like Glinda she looked. Then the countess steered the conversation in such a way that she was soon agreeing to go visit Sesbania that very evening, as a surprise. Mrs. Easterly thought this would be a wonderful present for her little girl and even wrote a note to the governess. Then the countess took me aside and gave me my instructions.”
“Gave you your instructions? How come I’ve never been able to give you instructions?”
“You must reason that out for yourself, Harry. Anyway, she told me to wait one hour and then to feign illness and ask Elizabeth to accompany me back to the hotel. When we got outside, I was to convince Elizabeth to help me burg
le the Sachses’.”
“How difficult was it to persuade Elizabeth to join you?”
“It wasn’t at all difficult to persuade her to leave, but she wasn’t too eager to help commit a felony.”
“It would have required an altruistic spirit foreign to Elizabeth.”
“Yes, but of course the countess had thought of that. She told me that if Elizabeth proved at all reluctant, I was to tell her that the countess knew all about her plans and was prepared to foil them.”
“What are Elizabeth’s plans?”
“She didn’t divulge that, only that she knew.”
“What a cunning woman.”
“I knew you were soft on her.”
“Am I?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t been spending afternoons with her. That episode in Baltimore, and the tickets to the matinee—she just wanted to get me out of the way.”
“Emmie, you’re always doing things behind my back.”
“Not that.”
“Well, this wasn’t that either. I merely took her to Mrs. Spinks’ salons. It was the salons I wanted to keep from you.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes, honestly.”
“Then what is it that goes on at these salons?”
“You remember the Frauenverein back in Williamsburg?”
“Gambling?”
“On the out-of-town horse races. And at reasonable odds.”
“I told you I was done with that, Harry.”
“Yes, but I couldn’t see much point in testing your resolve,” I told her. “I suppose we can assume the countess’s visit to the Easterlys’ involved her own burglary.”
“Oh, I doubt she needed to do that. Mrs. Easterly may not be aware of her husband’s machinations, but you can’t for a moment think there’s anything hidden in that house that Sesbania doesn’t know all about.”
“So Glinda would just need to say the magic words.”
“Something like that. I suspect none of Madame B____’s thefts involved anything as crude as an actual burglary.”
“Not when there are people like us about.”
“I don’t see what you have to complain about. These were for your benefit, Harry. Now we have these people in a bind. They can’t very well report a second theft of the same jewelry. And frankly, I enjoyed it. How did it go for you?”
Kalorama Shakedown (A Harry Reese Mystery) Page 16